On The BAFTA List, Good Films, But None About Topics That Worry Us Most
13.01.2022 - 19:03
/ deadline.com
Not so long ago, it looked as if the movies had firmly embraced topicality. Digital technology had radically shortened the production cycle. Ferociously reportorial writers and/or directors like Mark Boal, Aaron Sorkin and Oliver Stone were speeding toward the screen with timely, ‘ripped-from-the-headlines’ films like Zero Dark Thirty, The Social Network and Snowden even while their real-life characters and plot lines were still unfolding. It was pretty heady stuff, all caught up in Congressional scrutiny, court transcripts and debate about ongoing government surveillance of just about everyone.
The news-movie mash-up helped us to figure things out. Some of it was even great cinema.
Which makes this year’s longlist for the BAFTA best film award—a pretty fair compendium of the most compelling motion pictures currently available—something of a puzzlement. The list has drama (The Power Of The Dog, The Tragedy Of Macbeth). It has music (West Side Story, tick, tick . . . BOOM!). It even has a few laughs (Licorice Pizza, CODA).
But missing are the things we worry about most, right now—that is, topicality of a sort that once seemed to have become a core piece of the awards architecture.
Day after day, we are wrestling—as a culture, as a society—with Covid, lockdowns and a profound debate about personal freedom and the power of government and business to control behavior in pursuit of the perceived general good. But I don’t see much of that in BAFTA’s top 15 films (unless it’s lurking deep within the science fiction folds of Dune).
Alongside the virus, small matters like urban decay, street-crime, smash-and-grabs, inflation, abortion, partisan rancor, supposed insurrection and breakdown at the border are upending us. But the closest